Mr. Speaker, in the OECD countries, the debate on employment is centred on technology and increased productivity. In the long term, knowledge, technological knowledge in particular, constitutes the main force that drives economic growth and an enhanced quality of life.
Yet our top researchers are choosing to move elsewhere because there are not enough resources here to fund leading edge research in their fields.
This government thinks it has found the solution to this by creating the Foundation for Innovation and announcing the creation of the Millennium Fund. This is not so, for post-graduate bursary programs have fallen victim to the budget cuts to funding bodies, thus adding considerably to post-graduate students' debt load.
I am therefore calling upon this government to increase the budget allocated to the funding councils, the key mission of which is to fund research, on which the new knowledge-based economy rests essentially.